第37章

THE BAPTISM OF SOUND

WHAT had happened at Israel's house during Israel's absence is a story that may be quickly told.On the day of his departure Naomi wandered from room to room, seeming to seek for what she could not find, and in the evening the black women came upon her in the upper chamber where her father had read to her at sunset, and she was kneeling by his chair and the book was in her hands.

"Look at her, poor child," said Fatimah."See, she thinks he will come as usual.God bless her sweet innocent face!"On the day following she stole out of the house into the town and made her way to the Kasbah, and Ali found her in the apartments of the wife of the Basha, who had lit upon her as she seemed to ramble aimlessly through the courtyard from the Treasury to the Hall of Justice, and from there to the gate of the prison.

The next day after that she did not attempt to go abroad, and neither did she wander through the house, but sat in the same seat constantly, and seemed to be waiting patiently.She was pale and quiet and silent; she did not laugh according to her wont, and she had a look of submission that was very touching to see.

"Now the holy saints have pity on the sweet jewel," said Fatimah.

"How long will she wait, poor darling?"

On the morning of the day following that her quiet had given place to restlessness, and her pallor to a burning flush of the face.

Her hands were hot, her head was feverish, and her blind eyes were bloodshot.

It was now plain that the girl was ill, and that Israel's fears on setting out from home had been right after all.And making his own reckoning with Naomi's condition, Ali went off for the only doctor living in Tetuan--a Spanish druggist living in the walled lane leading to the western gate.This good man came to look at Naomi, felt her pulse, touched her throbbing forehead, with difficulty examined her tongue, and pronounced her illness to be fever.

He gave some homely directions as to her treatment--for he despaired of administering drugs to such a one as she was--and promised to return the next day.

About the middle of that night Naomi became delirious.

Fatimah stood constantly by her bed, bathing her hot forehead with vinegar and water; Habeebah slept in a chair at her feet;and Ali crouched in a corner outside the door of her room.

The druggist came in the morning, according to his promise;but there was nothing to be done, so he looked wise, wagged his head very solemnly, and said, "I will come again after two days more, when the fever must be near to its height, and bring a famous leech out of Tangier along with me!"Meantime, Naomi's delirium continued.It was gentle as her own spirit tent there.was this that was strange and eerie about her unconsciousness--that whereas she had been dumb while her mind in its dark cell must have been mistress of itself and of her soul, she spoke without ceasing throughout the time of her reason's vanquishment.Not that her poor tongue in its trouble uttered speech such as those that heard could follow and understand, but only a restless babble of empty sounds, yet with tones of varying feeling, sometimes of gladness, sometimes of sorrow, sometimes of remonstrance, and sometimes of entreaty.

All that night, and the next night also, the two black women sat together by her bedside, holding each other's hands like little children in great fear.Also Ali crouched again like a dog in the darkness outside the door, listening in terror to the silvery young voice that had never echoed in that house before.This was the night when Israel, sleeping at the squalid inn of the Jews of Wazzan, was hearing Naomi's voice in his dreams.

At the first glint of daylight in the morning the lad was up and gone, and away through the town-gate to the heath beyond, as far as to the fondak, which stands on the hill above it, that he might strain his wet eyes in the pitiless sunlight for Israel's caravan that should soon come.On the first morning he saw nothing, but on the second morning he came upon Israel's men returning without him, and telling their lying story that he had been stripped of everything by the Sultan at Fez, and was coming behind them penniless.

Now, Israel was to Ali the greatest, noblest, mightiest man among men.

That he should fall was incredible, and that any man should say he had fallen was an affront and an outrage.So, stripling as he was, the lad faced the rascals with the courage of a lion.

"Liars and thieves!" he cried; "tell that story to another soul in Tetuan, and I will go straight to the Kaid at the Kasbah, and have every black dog of you all whipped through the streets for plundering my master."The men shouted in derision and passed on, firing their matchlocks as a mock salute.But Ali had his will of them; they told their tale no more, and when they entered Tetuan, and their fellows questioned them concerning their journey, they took refuge in the reticence that sits by right of nature on the tongues of Moors--they said and knew nothing.

While Ali was on the heath looking out for Israel, the doctor out of Tangier came to Naomi.The girl was still unconscious, and the wise leech shook his head over her.Her case was hopeless;she was sinking--in plain words, she was dying--and if her father did not come before the morrow he would come too late to find her alive.

Then the black women fell to weeping and wailing, and after that to spiritual conflict.Both were born in Islam, but Fatimah had secretly become a Jewess by persuasion of her mistress who was dead.

She was, therefore, for sending for the Chacham.But Habeebah had remained a Muslim, and she was for calling the Imam."The Imam is good, the Imam is holy; who so good and holy as the Imam?""Nay, but our Sidi holds not with the Imam, for our lord is a Jew,and our lord is our master, our lord is our sultan, our lord is our king.""Shoof! What is Sidi against paradise? And paradise is for her who makes a follower of Moosa into a follower of Mohammed.